“Legal context: The prohibitively high cost of civil litigation is inefficient against millions of online infringers; it is virtually impossible to stop online infringement. The establishment and maintenance of a social norm which makes people willing to conform to pro-copyright norms independent of any consideration of legal incentives is indispensable in the fight against online infringers. It requires a credible enforcement mechanism to tell people that online infringement will not be socially acceptable and to increase copyright compliance; but the efficiency of such an enforcement mechanism is a function of transaction costs of copyright enforcement. The debate on the three strikes law should be viewed from its potential impact on our social and economic well being. I suggest that the infringing subscribers, not copyright owners or OSPs, should bear the cost of enforcement. Reducing transaction costs of enforcement is the key factor in designing any three strikes law if there is any reasonable chance that it will work.

Key points: To find a least cost solution to online infringement requires a good understanding of the relationship between the principles of externality and of ‘least cost avoider’. The concept borrows from Tort Law.

Practical significance: The reduction of transaction costs of copyright enforcement in the networked environment increases the credibility of the copyright system, if any design of copyright rule such as three strikes law takes the transaction costs of enforcing copyright in the networked environment and the principle of least cost avoider into consideration, it will change the way we formulate copyright policy.”

The Hill Times published my op-ed on the FairPlay Canada website blocking proposal, Why the CRTC should endorse FairPlay’s piracy site-blocking plan. The full unedited version, complete with endnote references is below. Last week Fairplay Canada ...

Below are slides used by my colleague Dan Glover in a presentation on Friday at the Canadian Council on International Law’s (CCIL) Annual Conference. His talk was on jurisdiction in the internet age. Glover ccil ...

The Second Circuit released an important opinion yesterday ruling that Aereo’s New York based Internet streaming service does not infringe the US public performance right. In WNET, Thirteen v. Aereo, Inc 2013 WL 1285591 (2nd.Cir.Apr, ...

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